OK, it’s not going to take me forever to do this book, but it is going to take longer than planned when I last posted on this blog. My mother’s journals were not blank, unlike those left to Terry Tempest Williams by her mother. The green post-its (above) mark passages to return to, share, possibly use as a caption or quote in the book. I’ve hung the paintings on the pages, and they have begun to tell me what’s in and what’s out. When I walked Paul through the gallery that forms the first … [Read more...]
Deadline Set: To the Studio!
Today I begin finalizing the text and images for the book on my mother’s art of Cape May. It has become so much more than a ‘pretty picture book’ and yet -- it is still pretty, and full of pictures. As my friend Kathleen Volk Miller advised, it will read as an inside story, a book that could only have been written by the painter’s daughter. Somehow, I had been trying to erase myself, to keep myself out of the picture. But, that’s crazy. Even the picture above has me in it: it’s her studio, yes, … [Read more...]
What? They Like My Poems?!
A little over a week ago, I received a request from Randall Brown, editor of Matter Press, for micro fiction or poems under 75 words. I sent six recently finished poems-- offering images also. The next morning, I got this email: “I love these! I’d like to publish all six, with the images.” Elated, I ran down to tell Paul -- and then, the anxiety started in. All six in one shot? Would I ever write another good poem? Would anyone notice them, or would they be lost? Would the paintings be “safe” on … [Read more...]
Celebrating 60 with my almost-90 Dad
I’m lucky. I have a wonderful husband, a father who enjoys his life at 89 and models, daily, the stoic practical joy of putting first things first. As this blog repeats, I miss my mother and I aspire to art, a high calling, sometimes impossibly high. But in our lighter moments, Mom and I reassured each other with the charge “Aim for mediocrity!” Today, January 23, is niece Pasha Alice Wilson’s 11th birthday. Twenty years ago, I was putting the final touches on the text for publication of THE … [Read more...]
Seeing Anew
Last night, Paul and I had dinner at Peking Gourmet, our favorite Chinese restaurant. We love the food, the kind and cheerful owner, Kim, and our regular server, Judy. At the end of the meal, we always read our fortunes -- and they usually offer the standard hopeful predictions about money, friendship, and travel. But last night, we both received apt philosophical fortunes. Mine was: “Clear your mental, emotional and psychic space and you’ll see.” Paul received: “To live your life in fear of … [Read more...]
The practice of good-bye
I was chopping celery for dinner three weeks ago, when the chirpy Brit-Indian inflection of a BBC World announcer interrupted my flow: Technology Giant Apple announced the death of its cofounder Steve Jobs today. Why was Apple the subject of this sentence? As a Mac aficionado, I mourn the loss of Steve Jobs’ edgy spirit in this world, but as an Apple stockholder, I’m less concerned. “Technology Giant Apple” will survive, or not. I’m more interested in the way we speak about death, our … [Read more...]
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love . . .
So the last time I blogged, I was recovering from receiving, losing and retrieving my first literary paycheck. This week, my essay about the pinnacle of my personal rejection behavior, “How to Cancel Your Wedding,” was accepted, edited, and then summarily rejected by The Monarch Review. The editor who accepted my essay promised it would be online Thursday, so I dutifully withdrew it from consideration at a handful of other lit mags, told a few friends, and eagerly checked the oh-so-cool Monarch … [Read more...]
Banked check, sent proposal, all good.
One month after losing my first literary paycheck, I found it amongst some library slips, in my recycling waste can. Wonderful feeling: I was paid twice :-). This time, I rushed to the bank. Deposited. Paul wanted to visit the Russian Icon Museum (in Clinton, MA) over Easter weekend, as we spent the holiday in Conway with cousins, and the above panel interested me. In writing poems and stories, I’m always seeking the right balance between that which is fugitive (seductive) and that which is … [Read more...]
What I did with the check
I was so excited about being paid to write something haunting and literary, as opposed to the payments I’ve received in the past to write cheerful promotional material, that I totally choked on what to do with the check. As reflected in my last blog, I was elated and considered all the usual tactics: frame it? Nah, it’s not that pretty. Besides, it’s cash. I want the money to begin to justify all the workshops, books, grad school, and bags of potato chips it cost me to write this essay. I … [Read more...]
My first literary paycheck arrived this month
I haven’t deposited it yet, I wanted to keep it around just for inspiration, but the best inspiration is having my lyric essay, “Never Mind,” appear in Arts & Letters, Spring 2011, above. I read the issue from cover to cover, and I loved so many of the pieces in it; I’m in good company. Very happy. Available direct from the publisher, and I have a few extra copies. Just ask. I’m not finished (but making progress) on the Alice Book, or my poetry manuscript. More later . . . I joke about … [Read more...]
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